Project description: House H is standing in the edge of Ljubljana city which belongs to the central Slovene region. This area has always indicated a distinctive crossing between the Alps and the Adriatic Sea, both in terms of climate conditions and heritage of architecture. By designing the house we tried to answer some basic demands of this climatic and social area in order to plan sustainable and social responsible building.

AWARDS
Project has been awarded 1st prize- selected project from Slovenia for "Contemporary House: In the Eyes of Young Architects" in 2012, by Foibos, Czech Republic

EXHIBITION
House H was exhibited at University of Debrecen, Hungary, 14.-18.5.2012, at Trmal Villa gallery in Prague 2.- 15.7. 2012 and at Faculty of Architecture in Brussels 29.5- 18.6 2013. It is a part of the exhibition "The Contemporary House in the Eyes of Young Architects" which is showing projects from Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Poland and Slovenia.

Location: Ljubljana, Slovenia
Size: 258 sqm (gross), 193 sqm (net)
Project phases: Preliminary project (IDZ), Building permit project (PGD), Detail planning (PZI), construction supervision (gradbeni nadzor)
State of the project: under construction
Year of the project: 2010-11
Year of construction: 2012-13
Client: Private
Authors: Eva Prelovšek Niemelä, Aarne Niemelä









Concept of the contemporary Slovene house- at the crossroads between the Alps and the Adriatic Sea.
1. Filling the city gaps: Cities and towns should be built denser to prevent further sprawling of districts and destruction of agricultural land. A 400m2 plot on which House H is standing is an example of the most compact urban unit for family house in the city gap, with 4m distance of built space from the plot border that demonstrates the existing town planning regulations.
    
2. Low-energy house: Sun and cold protection is needed - climate conditions between Alpine and Mediterranean are ranging from hot summers to cold winters. House H is compact to save energy for heating with variety of outdoor spaces, where different conditions of shadow/sun terraces and in-between spaces are possible. Integrated winter garden also enables small-scale cultivation of vegetables all-year-around.


3. Cultural sustainability: House H is a combination of a compact Alpine house and a pleasant Mediterranean atrium villa. Traditional Alpine house is a compact shelter with continuous building skin that was in former times made of wooden shingles. Mediterranean house, on the other hand, contains outdoor spaces that offer shadow and pleasant outdoor climate throughout the summer.

4. Social sustainability: Flexibility of use- house can be divided into several parts that are independent in order to adapt to the changes in the family structure, growth of children, home office and coexistence of different generations of the family. The whole ground floor, including the atrium and winter garden, can be opened into continuous free-flowing space or, on the other hand, separate units can be connected in vertical direction.